Docutils Release Notes

Author:	Lea Wiemann
Contact:	LeWiemann@gmail.com
Date:	2010-07-07
Revision:	6360
Web site:	http://docutils.sourceforge.net/
Copyright:	This document has been placed in the public domain.

This document summarizes the major changes in recent releases. For a more detailed list of changes, please see the Docutils History.

Contents

Changes Since 0.7
Release 0.7 (2010-07-07)
Release 0.6 (2009-10-11)
Release 0.5 (2008-06-25)
Release 0.4 (2006-01-09)
Release 0.3.9 (2005-05-26)
Release 0.3.7 (2004-12-24)
Release 0.3.5 (2004-07-29)

Changes Since 0.7

Release 0.7 (2010-07-07)

Components:

HTML writer:
- Support SVG and SWF images (thanks to Stefan Rank).
- Generate valid XHTML for centered images with targets. Use CSS classes instead of "align" tags for image alignment.
LaTeX2e writer:
- Use the \url command for URLs (breaks long URLs instead of writing into the margin).
- Preserve runs of spaces in 'inline literals'.
- Deprecate figure_footnotes setting.
- Rename use_latex_footnotes setting to docutils_footnotes.
- New latex_preamble setting.
- Use PDF standard fonts (Times/Helvetica/Courier) as default.
- hyperref package called with unicode option (see the hyperref config tips for how to override).
- Drop the special output_encoding default ("latin-1"). The Docutils wide default (usually "UTF-8") is used instead.

manpage writer:
- Titles level 1, that is .SH, always uppercase.
- Apply patch from mg: literal text should be bold in man-pages.

General:

io.FileInput opens files as text files with universal newline support (mode "rU", configurable with the new optional argument "mode").
setup.py:
- Python 3 support: copy test/ and tools/ to the build-dir and convert Python sources with 2to3.

Release 0.6 (2009-10-11)

Note

Docutils 0.5 is the last version supporting Python 2.2.

Docutils 0.6 is compatible with Python versions from 2.3 up to 2.6 and convertible to 3.1 code.

Note

The "newlatex" writer is orphaned.

The recommended way to generate PDF output is to use either the LaTeX2e writer or one of the alternatives listed at http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/links.html#pdf.

reStructuredText:
- Allow length units for all length specifications.
- Allow percent sign in "scale" argument of "figure" and "image" directives.
- Bugfix: The "figalign" argument of a figure now works as intended (aligning the figure not its contents).
- Align images with class "align-[right|center|left]" (allows setting the alignment of an image in a figure).
- Hard tabs in literal inclusions are replaced by spaces. This is configurable via the new "tab-width" option of the "include" directive (a negative tab-width prevents tab expansion).
HTML writer:
- --stylesheet and --stylesheet-path options now support a comma separated list of stylesheets.
LaTeX2e writer:
- New defaults: - font-encoding: "T1" (formerly implicitely set by 'ae'). - use-latex-toc: true (ToC with page numbers). - use-latex-footnotes: true (no mixup with figures). - Float placement defaults to "here definitely" (configurable). - Align of image in a figure defaults to 'center'. - Use class defaults for page margins ('typearea' now optional).
- Support LaTeX packages as --stylesheet arguments.
- Use bp for lengths without unit or unit pt, do not convert px to pt.
- Do not use 'ae' and 'aeguill' packages if font-encoding is set to ''.
- Set sub- and superscript role argument as text not math.
- Support custom roles based on standard roles.
- Load packages and define macros only if required in the document.
- All Docutils specific LaTeX macros are prefixed with DU.
- Better conformance to Docutils specifications with "use_latex_toc".
- If 'sectnum_xform' is False, the 'sectnum' directive triggers section numbering by LaTeX.
- Use default font in admonitions and sidebar.
- Typeset generic topic as "quote with title".
- Use template (file and configuration option).
- Render doctest blocks as literal blocks (indented).
ODT writer:
- moved from sandbox to Doctutils core.
manpage writer:
- moved from sandbox to Doctutils core.

Release 0.5 (2008-06-25)

Components:

HTML writer.
- Dropped all name attributes of a elements (id is universally supported now).
LaTeX2e writer:
- Better bibTeX citation support.
- Add --literal-block-env
PEP writer:
- Changed to support new python.org website structure and pep2pyramid.py.

reStructuredText:

Changed the directive API to a new object-oriented system. (Compatibility for the old, functional-style directive interface is retained.) See the updated Creating reStructuredText Directives how-to.
Allow + and : in reference names requested for citations.

Documentation:

Added Deploying Docutils Securely

Internationalization:

Added hebrew mappings.

General:

Configuration files are now assumed and required to be UTF-8-encoded.
Added docutils/writers/html4css1/template.txt.
Enhance emacs support.

Release 0.4 (2006-01-09)

Note

Docutils 0.4.x is the last version that will support Python 2.1. Docutils 0.5 will not be compatible with Python 2.1; Python 2.2 or later will be required.

Docutils 0.4.x is the last version that will make compromises in its HTML output for Netscape Navigator 4. Docutils 0.5 will require more up-to-date browsers (the exact definition is to be determined).

Components:

Added an S5/HTML writer and the rst2s5.py front end: multi-platform, multi-browser HTML slide shows.
The newlatex2e writer is nearing completion.
Added a DocTree reader, publish_doctree and publish_from_doctree convenience functions, for document tree extraction and reprocessing.

reStructuredText:

Added directives: "container" (generic block-level container), "default-role" (role used for `backtick` syntax), "title" (document title metadata), and "date" (generate the current local date, for substitution definitions).
Length units are now supported for image sizes.
Added standard definition files for special characters etc.

Internationalization:

Added Japanese and Simplified Chinese language mappings, and support for double-width CJK-characters in tables and section titles.

Documentation:

Added a guide for distributors (package maintainers) and a guide for developers.

General:

Added significant Emacs support for reST.
Added a --strip-comments option.
--embed-stylesheet is now the default for the HTML writer (rather than --link-stylesheet).

Release 0.3.9 (2005-05-26)

Added "file_insertion_enabled" and "raw_enabled" settings.
Added auto-enumerated lists.
Added "header" and "footer" directives.
Added "list-table" directive.
Added support for section subtitles.
Added "field_name_limit" and "option_limit" settings to HTML writer.
Added "cloak_email_addresses" setting to HTML writer.
UTF-8 BOMs are now removed from the input stream.

Release 0.3.7 (2004-12-24)

A special "line block" syntax has been added. (Also see the quick reference.)
Empty sections are now allowed.
A "raw" role has been added.
The LaTeX writer now escapes consecutive dashes (like "--" or "---") so that they are no longer transformed by LaTeX to en or em dashes. (Please see the FAQ for how to represent such dashes.)
A dependency recorder has been added.
A directive has been added for compound paragraphs.

Release 0.3.5 (2004-07-29)

Improved, extended and reorganized the documentation.
Added "csv-table" directive.